Don Fisher

Don Fisher, who died on September 27 aged 81, founded Gap, the casual clothes
company, taking it from a single shop on America's west coast in 1969 into a
global brand with more than 3,000 stores worldwide.

A pioneering figure in the retail business, Fisher was also known as a philanthropist and a prominent political donor, and amassed one of the world's great collections of modern art. It includes some of the 20th century's best-known artists, among them Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning.

Don Fisher and his wife Doris in front of the first Gap store, in San Francisco, in 1969

With Gap – which also sells the upmarket Banana Republic and cheaper Old Navy brands, among others – Fisher created a casual look that has influenced the lifestyle of the middle classes in America, Britain and beyond. Starting with "preppy" and mutating into "yuppie", his cool style of accessible chic was epitomised by classic cotton T-shirts and chinos and fostered an acceptance of informal clothes that led to the spread of "dress-down Fridays".

With his wife Doris, Fisher opened the first Gap shop in 1969 in San Francisco, after having problems finding jeans that fitted. They named the store after the idea of "The Generation Gap" and sold jeans and music to appeal to a clientele of young adults.

The simple, affordable style that became the Gap brand's trademark appealed to shoppers and soon took off. With his laid-back, faintly hippy-ish air, Fisher initially anticipated "maybe as many as 10" stores.

Fisher fostered a remarkable work ethic at his company, which, coupled with its rapid expansion, led one British retail consultant to compare it to the Moonies. "They were the most anal people I have ever met," he remarked. In London, the pinned-on smiles of Fisher's shop assistants inspired one fashion writer to note that they "all but split their faces when you walk through the doors".

Gap's reputation for modish nonchalance reached a peak in 1996 when the actress Sharon Stone wore a $25 Gap black turtleneck to the Oscars. But a decade later the business was being squeezed by rival brands (the Gap look was easy to copy), discount stores and designer labels, and appeared to abandon its core 20- and 30-something customers to chase the teenage market. The move backfired, sales fell and heads rolled.

More recently Fisher's empire has been criticised for its use of child labour in developing countries, particularly India and Cambodia, where children were found making some of Gap's clothing lines in 2000. Four years later the company put in place a social audit system to eliminate such practices in its production processes, and now prides itself as a leader in ethical and socially-responsible manufacturing: "We are proud of this programme to work to put an end to the use of child labour," a spokesman noted.

Donald George Fisher was born in San Francisco on September 3 1928 to middle-class parents. A natural athlete, he attended Lowell High School and the University of California, Berkeley, where he excelled at swimming and water polo. There he was once caught cheating in an exam on industrial relations by Clark Kerr, then a professor and later the university president. Kerr awarded him an "F" (for fail) but refrained from expelling him, an "act of mercy" for which Fisher was forever grateful. He subsequently graduated in Business Administration.

In August 1969 Fisher was a property developer with no retail experience when he and his wife tried to exchange a pair of Levis jeans that did not fit him. But they could not find a shop in San Francisco that carried his size. They invested $63,000 in a shop of their own, selling blue jeans and records, which Fisher had wanted to call "Pants and Discs" until his wife, Doris, intervened and named it "Generation Gap". "I didn't plan to go into the clothing business," Fisher noted in 2007. "I was just fortunate to have a bit of bad luck."

His customers soon persuaded him to expand his stock to other wardrobe basics like cords, chinos, casual shirts and T-shirts. He hired experts to develop a dramatic graphic look for his shops and a distinctive fun line in marketing. It issued its first public share offering in 1976 and grew into a worldwide chain.

Gap Inc now has more than 134,000 employees at 3,100 stores in 25 countries, with sales of $14.5 billion in the last financial year. In 2008 Forbes magazine estimated Fisher's personal fortune at $1.3 billion.

A generous philanthropist, Don Fisher was active in the field of education charities. In 2000 he gave $15 million to create the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Programme) Foundation, a national network of free, open-enrolment public schools for deprived children.

A conservative Republican, Fisher was a financial backer of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and of former President George W Bush, but also donated to the Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and the House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Last week the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced that it had formed a partnership with the Fishers to house their collection – 1,100 works by some of the most renowned artists of the 20th and early 21st century – in a new wing of the museum.